on the pulse - 2020 - week 38 - tickets to dolphin nectar

So, I literally cannot cover everything that dropped this week in my normal style - not only were there comfortably over a dozen albums that could fill up slots, but we’re talking about some of my most hotly anticipated projects of the year and a week where I’m working on finishing my best albums of the 2010s and have real life stuff that you’ll see on camera within a week; big changes are a-coming! Ergo, if you’re wondering why Sufjan Stevens isn’t getting covered this week, it’s because I need time to sit and think with that bloated thing - same with the back catalog from Deftones that I really need to revisit! So, with all of that mind, here’s what I could get to On The Pulse!

Action Bronson - Only For Dolphins - Here’s a honest question: was Action Bronson ever that good? I don’t think I’ve talked about him at length or have felt the need to really care about the guy - I remember him having a crossover single with Chance The Rapper years ago that charted, but then Ghostface Killah destroyed his career without even a song thanks to a video with a Teddy Pendergrass backing track that I will argue is funnier and more relevant to hip-hop culture than anything Action Bronson has ever said or done and that includes his cooking show…. which is good, for the record, but not on that level. And I went back to the albums and tapes people say they like before his major label signing like the Blue Chips series and Well Done - look, Statik Selektah can make anything sound good, and even he can’t salvage some of the excruciatingly retrograde attempts at swagger Bronson tried. So now a decade later, we’ve got this pretty short project that’s actually received some good press for Action Bronson, and… well, it is probably his best in a while, but I’m still not all that impressed. A big part of this is Action Bronson himself - as a rapper he’s descriptive and colourful but has never had a ton of dimension as an MC, which has led him to cultivate an image as a gluttonous, drug-abusing gangsta horndog, but almost to the point of becoming a caricature - big warning here, Griselda crew, if you’re not careful this can happen to you too, and with Daringer handling some production it’s an easy parallel. So okay, maybe he falls closer to a Rick Ross mold in terms of the braggadocious mafioso posturing, just swapping out a lot of the pathos Ross has been trying to build for loose humour and food references, and that does have an audience - at the very least you can tell Bronson has grown up a bit and there’s considerably less edgelord crap leaking through. But like with Rick Ross, there’s a limit to how much I can say about him - I hear a bit of maturity by the very end but not much evolution in the content, and constant excess can get repetitive fast, especially when I don’t find the wordplay all that striking or funny. Truth be told, once again I find myself liking his production more than Bronson himself - lush, splashy touches of New York smooth jazz with a lot of horns and warm bass, which might be luxurious with the watery touches, splashy pianos and dolphin squeaks, but it’s not quite giving me enough to get around Action Bronson at the center in the same way Statik Selektah could pull off. At the end of the day… look, for Action Bronson’s target audience, this’ll be just fine. For everyone else… it’s his best in a while if only decent in my books, and at least it’s short. 6/10, good but not really my thing.

Ayreon - Transitus - Okay, let me make this clear: the last time Arjen Lucassen deviated from the ‘Forever’ plotline in his Ayreon project, we got The Theory Of Everything, which is one of the best metal albums of the 2010s - I was not against him making a pivot, even if the sign of him releasing this in tandem with a comic book had me worried because you shouldn’t need supplemental reading material to go along with your concept album, which Arjen should know because he’s been doing it successfully since the 90s. But fine, new Ayreon project, Tommy Karevik from Kamelot is the lead, along with Cammie Gilbert from Oceans Of Slumber, Simone Simons from Epica, Dee Snider from Twisted Sister, and oh, Joe Satriani and Marty Friedman formerly of Megadeth on guitars, and Tom Baker - yes, the former Fourth Doctor - providing narration! That’s another stacked cast, so of course expectations were high… and I hate to say it, but this falls short for me, to the point where I wish Arjen had continued with his plan to make this a non-Ayreon project. And I’m going to start with the plot here, such as it is: our 1880s protagonist marries a servant girl, gets disowned by his family, and dies in an accident that his vengeful family wants to pin on his widow, and before he’s sent to heaven or hell, he has to find a way to save her life from beyond the grave - oh, and the servant girl is black and the rich family is white and wow, I’m not at all comfortable with Arjen Lucassen writing about race in 2020! That’s not saying he couldn’t do it - the best Ayreon albums have complexity and moral ambiguity that comes through despite some hamfisted writing - but there are two major problems: one, none of this really materializes, because even more than The Source this album feels like it’s working in increasingly broad archetypes, and the tragic misunderstandings and deceptions feel very Broadway but lacking even that punch. And two, following off the major issue I had with The Source, Arjen’s lyrics are sliding towards clunky modern colloquialisms that don’t match the attempted gravitas of these scenes at all! It’s a serious tension-breaking element… but that would assume there’s much tension to break, because not only does Tom Baker’s narration describe in too much detail every plot point - show not tell, how am I giving this direction to the mastermind who created so many expansive and memorable concept albums - but this might be most undercooked and lacking in dynamics an Ayreon album has ever been. You’d think with as much time spent in a spirit realm there’d be way more focus on atmosphere beyond very similar chilly synths, or you’d touch upon weirder textures or tones given that’s uncharted fantasy territory, or if you’re going to make obvious easter egg references to the Forevers and The Human Equation - precisely the WRONG comparison to make, given certain parallels - why not pull more textures from there rather than tones that make me say, ‘well, sounds like Ayreon… where are the rest of the killer hooks, and why is this not interesting?’ You can argue this has been an issue going back to Theory Of Everything in that the songs don’t have much structure, but that album had an engrossing narrative that could compensate, whereas here the pieces feel undercooked. I’ve seen Arjen put out a few different statements apologizing for how the physical copies of the release are missing lyrics sheets and credits and I’m circling back to how this might have been a complete mess in more ways than expected… but even then, I don’t really think this is bad! You put this much talent in a room, you might wind up with a misguided mess, but I can’t deny enough raw quality shines through to at least produce a few high points - the mix might feel a bit more gaudy in splashes, but some of the horns, flutes, pipes, touches of harpsichord, and choppy acoustics remind me in a fond way of The Final Experiment but cleaner and brighter. And I’ll argue that the few songs that feel a bit more organized are solid, like ‘Listen To My Story', ‘Get Out! Now!’, ‘Condemned Without A Trial’, ‘Hopelessly Slipping Away’, and ‘The Great Beyond’ - mostly on the part of Simone Simons and Cammie Gilbert of Oceans Of Slumber, who make the best of what they have to work with here and sound beautiful. Hell, I’d even stick up for ‘Dumb Piece Of Rock’ for being a decent metal tune even if the lyrics are goddamn asinine. But I also have to admit this might be the album that disappoints me the most in 2020, and considering how IDLES fell short too just this week, that says a lot. Strong 6/10, I know I’m being generous where a lot of critics won’t be, and I just hope Arjen can turn things around.

IDLES - Ultra Mono - Look, IDLES is a band that has earned high expectations - their first two projects were great, wild, a ton of fun, absolutely worth hearing and generally could rise above some of the scene backlash I’ve noticed against them in the recent months. But I did get a slightly uneasy feeling when the buzz felt a little muted going into Ultra Mono - the singles I had heard I had liked but it was the unease of not just missing expectations, but falling shorter. So I was worried about this… and unfortunately, some of those worries were justified, because this is absolutely the sort of step back that comes from a band where the ideas are starting to run short and the slogans are starting to turn a little hollow. Now there are qualifiers to that - raw bluntness can have power, this can happen to a lot of political punk bands that get big, which is a tradition that goes back to the 70s, and the accusations that they’re being ‘condescending’ to the average small town UK voter is one to which I assign a massive asterisk; we don’t castigate American pop punk when they put suburbia righteously on blast, so I can smell the bullshit when certain salty acts and media outlets try to inflate this narrative overseas. But IDLES would be a lot easier to defend if the music and content hadn’t taken a downturn… which unfortunately it has to a small degree, specifically surrounding some stiffer grooves and some of Joe Talbot’s delivery, which takes a little too long to build up the intensity needed to sell some of the more ridiculous lyrics. It also doesn’t help that it seems like the tone of the anger has changed - not only is there a trace of real sourness, but I’m not hearing the same well-balanced dimensionality that could make IDLES both riotous and heart-wrenching… which is to be expected from a band that is no longer the underdog, but the answer is not to push back on your populism, or drive into harsher, blocker percussion and bass where the closest analogues might be in early 80s no wave! This might also be an issue of content, as this project is a lot more outwardly political and they sure as hell have the power to land those body blows, but this is where a slight drop of populism should at least be compensated by the writing, and I’m not sure it always is - as an related aside, this has been an issue in politically minded music for years but it’s growing in recent times, a lot of songs playing the ‘ally’ have felt increasingly clumsy across multiple genres, and I don’t think IDLES nails their best attempts here; there’s a song with Jehnny Beth that tries to call out catcallers, and I don’t quite think it sticks, not helped by the fact she doesn’t get a verse. But the larger issue might be tone - as much as the sourness might be righteous and fit with the darker, heavier waves of guitar, there was a lingering sense of desperation that amped up the intensity that isn’t really here - and let’s be honest, I don’t think IDLES are ever going to write a more powerful moment than ‘baby shoes for sale: never worn’. All of that being said… I’m making all of these criticisms because like with Ayreon, the core fundamentals are so goddamn strong that we’re going to wind up with a very good project regardless! The nervy hammering riffs of ‘Anxiety’, the quasi-surf rock guitar rollick on ‘Model Village’, the coursing bass driving the middle finger at Tories on ‘Carcinogenic’, even the whirring stomp of ‘Reigns’ somehow manages to work… although I probably have the biggest soft spot for ‘The Lover’ which has some of that swaggering mischief that makes the best IDLES songs… which makes the legit depressed gutpunch of ‘A Hymn’ as the sole slowdown moment pretty impactful, especially with the brighter tremolo riffing in the backdrop. But in the end… it’s a great album, but I’m reminded of thoughts I had on Algiers’ new album earlier this year, because a similar percussion-heavy focus slides to the forefront and you can tell the world weighed on both of them, which is what happens when artists desperately try to make something that clicks in times of strife, which is why ‘Danke’ showing Joe Talbot trying to buoy spirits by the end is a good touch. And thus… 8/10. Not their best and there were absolutely flaws, but I respect the effort here.

Joji - Nectar - True story, the first time Joji really impressed me was not on the singles he’d get to crack the Hot 100 - most of which I liked - but when I accidentally wound up seeing him live at a festival last year - hey, remember music festivals? I wound up going with a friend because she needed someone large to help her get close to the stage, and let’s make this clear: Joji is a star. The magnetism and stage presence he had live was legit stunning, and he absolutely could deliver his songs with the swell and grandeur he was attempting. And that impressed me enough to go back to BALLADS 1 and… well, there was still work to be done. The production wasn’t consistent to match or amplify that presence and the writing didn’t always help, but again, I knew with singles in the lead-up to this project that some of that had been fixed, and thus we got this follow-up… and while it’s an improvement, I really wish it held up to the promise of those singles. Let’s get this out of the way now, this is an album that unfortunately has the same unevenness as BALLADS 1 just with a bloated structure that means there’s more good but not quite great or super distinctive pop trap/R&B, ‘Khalid crossed with Frank Ocean and a splash of James Blake’ crooning to get to the best moments. It also does not help matters that the album feels a bit front-loaded, with the guest stars to shore up the back half not really impressing me much - after a strong three track run with ‘Gimme Love’, ‘Run’, and ‘Sanctuary’, the project gets less consistent, with probably ‘Afterthought’ with BENEE, ‘Your Man’, and maybe ‘Mr. Hollywood’ as the remaining standouts. What I realized midway through this project is that the more Joji goes for slightly quicker, driving grooves that don’t default to trap, or show more expansiveness in his vocal arrangements or some of the guitar and synth textures he uses, the more his unique flair for melodrama shines through, especially as this album keeps a better pace thanks to a dynamic low end than I expected. And while he can deliver the smaller moments, but they stick the landing less often, mostly because the writing is still not quite getting there. Not that it’s bad - it’s definitely got some of that strained, slightly desperate pushiness that he can’t quite pull off and matching that with any sort of flexing doesn’t help… but I’ll give him credit for being more self-aware and more empathetic in examining just how much his presence can be a time bomb in relationships that he might pursue for the wrong reasons, and his post-breakup musings are emotionally honest in a good way. You can also tell that he’s not really adjusting to fame well and seems acutely aware of how his mercurial traits are bouncing off that, and it leads to a few plainspoken but good realizations… but this is a project that really needs to either trim itself down or show more diversity in the subject matter, because the angst starts to become very familiar and a bit played out by the end. Still, I will say this is better than I expected - which might as well be the tagline for any experience I’ve had with Joji or his music - and the best moments here show volumes of potential, so… light 7/10, it’s got flaws, but it’s still quite good.

Lydia Loveless - Daughter - Apparently this is going to be the week of high expectations for me, but with Lydia Loveless I was a little more realistic. It was like when I covered Ruston Kelly’s Shape & Destroy a month or so back - it wasn’t going to hit the same resonance as Dying Star because that album connected with me at a very vulnerable point, and it was even true with Lydia Loveless’ 2016 album Real. So with Daughter I was bracing myself for a bit of disappointment… and while that’s somewhat true, I’m also self-aware enough to see a lot of the same advancements I liked on Real continue onto this album, which by the end winds up pretty damn great. Not better than Indestructible Machine or Real and I’m not sure it’s got the killer stand-out of ‘Everything’s Gone’ from Somewhere Else, but this is still really damn potent and consistent and shows her pushing her sound into more nocturnal, starry territory, with slightly slower tempos, brighter guitar lines including some really nice jangling progressions, and more keyboards and synth to augment a more atmospheric mix, where some of the melodic progressions, vocal lines and grooves almost remind me a spacier Fleetwood Mac. And that fits the unsettled progression of the album - where Real was very raw in touching her still fresh divorce, Daughter is trying to dig deeper into where things went awry, which means it’s naturally more introspective and complicated, the sort of album that recalls therapy at its best not just because of the round-like structure that ends a few songs here, but because Lydia Loveless never absolves herself of culpability… which also helps the touches of a Fleetwood Mac vibe, come to think of it. And she cuts to some difficult territory, not just in terms of alcohol abuse and other self-destructive tendencies and her own habit of loving too hard too early, but given how she’s interwoven her personal stories into her art, how some can come to perceive her as what she’s created than who she really is, and her own idealized picture isn’t always the reality, especially when love for someone else consumes her point of view…. but dear god, she wants it to be, and that real tragic ambition is genuinely potent, especially opposite guys who don’t treat her with the same passion, which makes a cut like the title track so devastating. And I don’t think there are many writers or singers working today who could make the frank romanticisms balanced with wistful dreams of escape work on ‘September’, which with Laura Jane Grace providing backing vocals adds a certain context that only makes it cut deeper. Again, I’m not sure this album has the striking immediacy or tremendous high points of Real and it’s absolutely more of a slow burn - and I’ll admit those can be hit-and-miss how long they wind up sticking with me - but it’s still great stuff. 8/10, highly recommended.

Machine Gun Kelly - Tickets To My Downfall - …I mean, do you open with the joke he plainly set up in the album title, or do you remark on the fact that Eminem killed his rap career so hard he had to change genres? Now believe it or not, I’m kind of okay with that - the rap rock thing in the mainstream is picking up traction, Machine Gun Kelly hasn’t sounded bad at it, and let’s face it, it couldn’t possibly be as trash as his 2017 album bloom, right? Well, here’s the thing: this album is trash in so many sense of the word and in its hip-hop moments is cribbing way more than it should from the late Lil Peep… and it works way better than it has any right to, in that this might be Machine Gun Kelly’s best and most honest project to date. No jokes, I had more fun with this than I expected and that’s kind of because Machine Gun Kelly seems somewhat self-aware of the mercenary melodrama he’s spewing - he’s transparently phony and full of shit, but at least for once he’s somewhat honest about it, which is the one reason I don’t put him in the same camp as other derivative pop punk that’s trying so hard to rip off Blink-182. And that swagger and attitude works in pop punk where a slice of more sincere and respectable bands - and their defenders - would dismiss this as derivative and meat-headed, kind of ignoring the rampant immaturity and toxicity that’s cut through pop punk’s roots for decades and how this is probably closer to how many of them actually behave! And when you strip away the braggadocious preening that MGK could never really sell as a rapper, he slots into the transparently plastic, overcompressed side of pop punk really well - the hooks and riffs are punchy and even if they don’t have much in the way of distinctive texture I’ve heard far worse in pop punk this year, helped along by Travis Barker showing up on drums and production and giving this way more quality than it deserves, he’s a bad singer but rarely in the way that it’s obtrusive or annoying, the melodic grooves are solid, and while Halsey shows up on ‘forget me too’ and sounds better than she has on anything… possibly ever, I honestly didn’t really mind Trippie Redd, iann dior, and even blackbear here! No jokes here, this is an album which is screaming for at least one Lil Uzi Vert guest appearance, given the energy he brought to his albums this year, he’d fit perfectly! Honestly, this is probably an album that could have afforded to be wilder, more debauched, and stupider - yes, even including those interludes - and outside of ‘lonely’, a surprisingly real song dedicated to his late father, and maybe the song dedicated to his daughter ‘play this when i’m gone’, you can absolutely argue the overcompressed mix starts to lead a lot of songs to run short on momentum when the melodies don’t punch as hard. That being said, if you can tune your brain to the debauched, mercenary idiocy on display, I’ll endorse this in the same way I will Andrew W.K.’s I Get Wet - I can’t and won’t say I’m above this, it’s way too much fun to hate. light 8/10. Yeah, I fucking went there.